Back in May, the governor signed a bill to increase efforts to stop bullying, adding that students who are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender should be protected — especially after a number of gay teen suicides. One Colorado, a statewide LGBT advocacy group, took the ball and ran with it,…
ColoradoSchoolGrades.com, a new website developed by a coalition education advocacy groups, attempts to simplify the process of figuring out whether a school is a gem or a lemon. Using the same data used by the state to label schools on a scale from “performance” to “turnaround,” the easy-to-use website gives…
Yesterday marked the death, for now, of a Colorado Board of Education rule mandating that school districts tell parents when staffers are busted for sex and drug crimes, among other offenses. That’s good news to Troy Lowrie, a strip-club owner who lost a side job coaching high school tennis after…
Applications were due yesterday for schools wishing to continue under the banner of the Charter School Institute, a quasi-state agency created in 2004 to approve charter schools rejected by districts with an ax to grind. The Ricardo Flores Magon Academy — the subject of our cover story, “A Hard Line”…
Earlier this fall, we told you about a parent-led crusade to delay the start of public school in Denver until September to avoid the heat that plagued August. This agitating led to the creation of a task force to survey the community about its start-date preferences. The results are in…
Enrollment in charter schools is growing nationwide, as well as here in Colorado. More than two million students now attend charter schools in the U.S., a 13 percent increase from last year, according to numbers released today by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. Colorado contributed to that growth…
Last week, in a post about the CU Boulder student legislative council passing a resolution to move the annual 4/20 event off campus, we noted that the university had topped a survey by Newsweek and the Daily Beast of the nation’s druggiest colleges. But CU spokesman Bronson Hilliard — who…
This week’s cover story, “A Hard Line,” looks deeper into complaints against a Westminster charter school called the Ricardo Flores Magon Academy. One former teacher is now suing the school, claiming she was discriminated against and then fired in 2009 after she called in sick with the swine flu, which…
This week’s cover story, “A Hard Line,” takes a look at the Ricardo Flores Magon Academy, a charter school in Westminster with both high test scores and a high number of former teachers, one of whom recently filed a discrimination lawsuit against the school. Among complaints voiced by some former…
The annual 4/20 bacchanal on the CU Boulder campus, dubbed an orgasm of cannabis consumption by NORML exec Allen St. Pierre, is a tradition many university officials would like to end — and student government leaders like Carly Robinson are heading in that direction, too. But at a forum last…
The Ricardo Flores Magon Academy charter school in Westminster gets spectacular academic results and has won accolades for its tennis and chess programs. But former teachers and parents say not everything there is working — especially the administration. How much will the personality clashes, high teacher turnover and multiple lawsuits…
If you missed the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade yesterday, you didn’t see Broomfield’s Legacy High School Lightning Marching band. The more than two-mile parade for Legacy High marked the first time in ten years that a Colorado high school marched in the parade. Big photo below…
Update: Arrowwood Elementary parent Rachel Drummond had objections to a play scheduled for her daughter’s second-grade class today, due to references to Native Americans as “savages” and a speech that overtly referred to a higher power. However, Douglas County School District public information officer Randy Barber believes it’s important to…
This year may be the last for the Life Skills Center, a last-chance high school that Westword profiled in 2007. Last night, the Denver Public Schools board voted to shutter the struggling alternative charter school, which had been given a second chance in 2008 after facing the same fate…
Jefferson County Child Support Services has developed a new video intended to show that the department offers support for teen parents and children. However, most of the 21-minute long production called Think Beyond Friday Night is spent detailing all the horrors and tribulations of teen pregnancy…
East High School’s principal is leaving — though under less dubious circumstances than the principal at West High, who suddenly resigned earlier this year. In an e-mail to parents, East principal John Youngquist announced that he’s accepted a job to become Denver Public Schools’s Director of Principal Talent Development…
A new report by the American Association of University Professors’ Colorado Conference concludes that CU-Boulder’s dismissals of professor Ward Churchill and untenured history instructor Phil Mitchell were unjustified — but that’s not all. The document also concludes that its actions were so egregious that profs looking for a job should…
Update about the Jimenez-Draper Carson race below. By now, you’ve heard that Anne Rowe and Allegra “Happy” Haynes won seats on the Denver Public Schools board, and that incumbent Arturo Jimenez narrowly claimed victory over reformer Jennifer Draper Carson. As for Rowe opponent Emily Sirota, you won’t read her reaction…
West High School is not closing. At least not yet. That point was hammered home repeatedly today at a gathering of West High leaders, media and community members to talk about the future of the low-performing school, which will welcome two new academies to its building next year. “This is…
With the temperature dropping outside, it’s getting harder to remember when Denver’s children were sweltering in their classrooms two months back. But Denver Public Schools hasn’t forgotten. In fact, the district has launched a task force whose goal is to survey the community about whether to delay the first day…
Last night, MSNBC’s The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell devoted a hefty five-minute segment (on view below) to the Denver school board race and candidate Emily Sirota. Why? O’Donnell followed an article from The Nation that called the contest the wackiest in the country. But it’s hard to imagine either…
After spending the morning with W., Mayor Michael Hancock (who the former president said was classy), launched his Denver Education Compact, a committee of big brains set to tackle the city’s school system, which graduated just 51.8 percent of students on time last year. Hancock, who spoke a lot about…
